Food & Nutrition

Details: Written by: Vanessa McMains, Johns Hopkins University

How Magic Mushrooms Eases Cancer Patient Anxiety Just one dose of a hallucinogenic drug offers many cancer patients up to six months of relief from disease-related anxiety or depression.

Details: Written by: Peter Rüegg, ETH Zurich

Can Too Much Fatty Food Harm Young Brains? Eating a very high-fat diet early in life may disrupt development of the prefrontal cortex in young brains, according to new research in mice.

Details: Written by: University of Melbourne

Can Biofortified Rice Ease Hidden Hunger It Causes? Rice is the staple food of billions of people throughout the developing world. But beyond easing hunger pains and providing carbohydrates for energy, it has little nutritional value.

Details: Written by: Jim Dryden, Washington University in St. Louis

This Cell Fat Discovery Could Ease Inflammation and Complications For Diabetics Inflammation is one of the main reasons why people with diabetes experience heart attacks, strokes, kidney problems, and other, related complications. Now a surprise finding identifies a possible trigger of chronic inflammation.

Details: Written by: Michelle Ma, University of Washington

The Mislabeling Of Seafood Is Rampant Around The World Recent studies estimate up to 30 percent of seafood in restaurants and supermarkets is actually something other than what is listed on the menu or label.

Details: Written by: Nicola Jones, University of Warwick

Low Vitamin D May Raise Risk Of Bladder Cancer A review of seven research studies suggests a vitamin D deficiency might increase the risk of bladder cancer.

Details: Written by: Gerry Everding, Washington University in St. Louis

How Chickens Took Over The World The discarded bone of a chicken leg, still etched with teeth marks from a dinner thousands of years ago, provides some of the oldest known physical evidence for the introduction of domesticated chickens to the continent of Africa.

Details: Written by: Marla Paul, Northwestern University

How The Placebo Sweet Spot Could Help Control Your Pain Scientists have identified for the first time the region in the brain responsible for the “placebo effect” in pain relief, when a fake treatment actually results in substantial reduction of pain.

Details: Written by: Kristin Samuelson, Northwestern University

Why Caffeine Doesn’t Leave Everybody Wired Depending on your genetic make-up, you might be able to drink coffee right before bed or feel wired after just one cup, ongoing research shows.

Details: Written by: Jim Dryden, Washington University in St. Louis

High Protein Diets May Not Lower Diabetes Risk In a small weight-loss study, women on a high-protein diet did lose weight but didn’t see improvements in insulin sensitivity, which can help lower diabetes risk.

Details: Written by: Amy Pullan, University of Sheffield

Why There Is No Link Between Hunger And How Much We Eat Researchers find no link between how hungry we feel and the number of calories we consume.

Details: Written by: Emma Rayner, University of Nottingham

Women who replaced an afternoon diet drink with water lost more weight and had better insulin sensitivity. Women who replaced an afternoon diet drink with water lost more weight and had better insulin sensitivity.

Details: Written by: Chris Elliott, Queen's University Belfast and Marie Cantwell, Queen's University Belfast

Not All Processed Meats Carry The Same Cancer Risk Eating processed meat can increase your risk of getting colorectal cancer. The World Health Organisation’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) says that each 50g portion of processed meat eaten daily (about two bacon rashers) increases bowel cancer risk by 18%.

Details: Written by: Paul Bertrand; Amy Loughman, and Melinda Jackson, RMIT University

It’s not as simple as opening a tub of yoghurt. jules/Flickr, CC BY The gut microbiota is the community of bugs, including bacteria, that live in our intestine. It has been called the body’s “forgotten organ” because of the important role it plays beyond digestion and metabolism.

Details: Written by: Andrew Tonkin, Monash University

Aspirin Is The Pain And Fever Reliever That Prevents Heart Attacks, Strokes And Maybe Cancer Aspirin is, like ibuprofen and Voltaren (diclofenac), a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) used to treat pain and reduce fever.

Details: Written by: National University of Singapore

The Neem Compound May Shrink Prostate Tumors A compound derived from the leaves of the neem plant could significantly suppress the development of prostate cancer, according to new research with mice.

Details: Written by: Jane Martin, University of Melbourne and Trevor Shilton, Curtin University

How We Get Sucked In By Junk Food Specials In Supermarkets Three in five Australian adults get sucked in by promotions and specials on junk food and sugary drinks at the supermarket, research released today shows.

Details: Written by: Merlin Thomas, Baker IDI Heart & Diabetes Institute

Metformin Is The Diabetes Drug That Is Developed From French Lilac Metformin is the most widely used drug to treat type 2 diabetes globally. In Australia, approximately two-thirds of patients with type 2 diabetes are prescribed metformin, either alone or in combination with other pills, or with insulin injections.

Details: Written by: Lene Hundborg Koss, University of Copenhagen

Here Is A Better Way To Detect Food Fraud Food scientists argue that near-infrared spectroscopy would work better than other methods to detect food fraud.

Details: Written by: Jonas House, University of Sheffield

What Is It That Puts People Off Eating Insects? There’s a lot of hype around edible insects. Insects are being championed as a healthy and sustainable alternative to conventional protein sources in Europe and the US, and “ento-prising” new products are appearing almost every week.

Details: Written by: InnerSelf Staff

A woman from New York Public Interest Research Group speaks to a passerby about the potential dangers of GMOs in front of a Whole Foods Market in New York on June 3, 2014. (Jonathan Zhou/Epoch Times) Opponents and proponents of genetically modified food have invoked science in their arguments, but science has no definitive answer.